Helped defeat 2014 legislation loosening rural land use laws

HB 4153 and SB 1578 would have exempted local governments in areas with high unemployment from complying with all of Oregon land use law. These bills would have allowed cities and counties where unemployment averaged 7% or more for a year to write their own ordinances governing the siting of “industrial, manufacturing, or natural resource facilities.” Further, no review of such ordinances would have been allowed by LUBA (Oregon's land use oversight body, the Land Use Board of Appeals.​This would have allowed "supersiting" of factories, mines, power generating facilities, and any other structure or industry that processes "materials into products."

The approval of destination resorts would have fallen under this broad authority. If Deschutes County had received this authority, for example, county commissioners could likely have converted Aspen Lakes subdivisions in Sisters into a resort after only one public hearing in the area.

We opposed this proposal in part because it is currently not legal to site a resort development at Aspen Lakes golf subdivision outside of Sisters. In order to make it happen special legislation must be created in Salem for a bill that would apply only to this subdivision.